Egypt's newly-formed parliament convenes first session in 3 years

PanARMENIAN.Net - Egypt's first legislature in more than three years, a 596-seat chamber packed with supporters of President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, held its inaugural session on Sunday, January 10, signaling the completion of a political road map announced after the 2013 military overthrow of an elected Islamist president, the Associated Press reports.

The assembly, elected in November and December, is the first legislature since el-Sissi, as military chief, led the 2013 ouster of President Mohammed Morsi following mass protests against the Islamist leader and his Muslim Brotherhood. The new parliament replaces one dominated by Islamists that was dissolved by a court ruling in June 2012.

The new chamber's first task will be to ratify some 300 presidential decrees issued by el-Sissi since taking office in June 2014 and Interim President Adly Mansour before him. Under the constitution, these decrees must be ratified within 15 days starting from the date of the inaugural session. Failure to do so will result in the automatic repeal of the laws.

The decrees include a law severely restricting street demonstrations and a terror law that curbs press freedoms and gives police sweeping powers, according to AP.

Sunday's session was supposed to be a mostly procedural one, with lawmakers taking the oath and electing a speaker and two deputies. But heated arguments between lawmakers broke out when an outspoken member, Murtada Mansour, strayed from the text of the oath to avoid endorsing the Jan. 25, 2011 uprising against autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

Mansour, an el-Sissi supporter and president of one of Egypt's top soccer clubs, changed the part of the oath where lawmakers pledge respect for the constitution, saying instead he will respect the "clauses of the constitution," thus avoiding implicit support for the charter's prologue. That part of the document contains praise for both the 2011 revolt as well as the so-called "June 30 revolution," a reference to the wave of massive street demonstrations that led to Morsi's ouster on July 3, 2013.